New circular delays modern slaughterhouses

Some slaughterhouses in ​Cu Chi district is still just a construction ground (Photo: tuoitre.vn)

HCM City (VNS/VNA) - A new circular issued by the Ministry
of Agriculture and Rural Development has postponed the opening of modern
slaughterhouses and delayed the closing of old facilities.

In late August, contractors finished levelling
ground for a 15 million USD slaughterhouse of An Ha LLC in Cu Chi district, Ho Chi
Minh City. However, Nguyen Thi Hong Tham, director of the An Ha Company, is worried
that the construction of some important departments will be delayed while other
facilities will need to be changed to adapt to standards regulated by the new
circular.

The company will have to adjust its design plan
or move some departments to avoid violating the circular. “We have to move the
factory away and upgrade animal shelters to fit regulations,” Tham said.

However, the most difficult condtition is that
“a slaughter has to locate at least 500m from residential areas, schools and
hospitals” which was not cited in former circulars. Therefore, the An Ha
Company stopped building its cold storage facility and moved the main slaughter
away from neighbours’ fences to meet the requirement.

“How can we make sure our factory is 500m away
from residential areas since beyond the fence is their land? In the future, if
they build a house, we will, again, violate the circular,” she said.

Due to those changes, nearly 100 containers of
equipment imported from Germany are being stored at a port, awaiting shipment
to Vietnam.

“At present, we are dividing the plan into
smaller categories. For each category, we must prepare documents to report to
city authorities,” Tham added.

The An Ha Company is not alone. Many other
slaughterhouses approved by HCM People’s Committee will have to adjust their
plans to adapt to the circular.

The city has planned to develop modern
slaughterhouses to replace old ones since 2010, according to HCMC Department of
Agricultural and Rural Development, with the city People’s Committee approving
a plan aiming to operate six industrial slaughterhouses by the end of 2016.
However, due to financial and administrative difficulties, no facility opened
last year, and thus the city still could not close the old facilities.

On April 25, 2017, the HCMC People’s Committee
approved “The planning of slaughterhouse system in HCMC from 2016 to 2020”. Its
goal is to put six industrial slaughters into operation by the end of 2017 and
close all existing outdated slaughterhouses except for two plants in Can Gio district.

Per the plan, all the city’s slaughter
activities will be run in six industrial slaughterhouses with capacity of
10,000 to 15,000 pigs per day.

However, at present, the goal seems likely to be
missed as almost all the projects won’t be finished by the end of 2017.

For some projects, investors have just started
levelling the ground, while the An Ha Company project has to change its design
and plans to begin operating by 2018 at the earliest.

Bach Dang Quang, director of Tan Hiep
Cooperative, the investor of Tan Hiep Food Processing Factory in Hoc Mon district
said that they are facing difficulties in terms of infrastructure. Specifically,
though the co-operative has the capital to build a factory and set up
facilities, the road leading to the factory has not been built, despite the
city promising to build it.

“The current riverside road is small and
seriously eroded. We do not know whether there will be a new one for lorries
when the factory is built,” said Quang.-VNA